Posted on 02/05/2005 11:37:51 AM PST by gobucks
ELKTON - Charles Darwin and his intellectual descendants have taken a lashing here lately.
With the Cecil County Board of Education about to vote on a new high school biology textbook, some school board members are asking whether students should be taught that the theory of evolution, a fundamental tenet of modern science, falls short of explaining how life on Earth took shape.
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The politically conservative county of about 90,000 people bordering Pennsylvania and Delaware is joining communities around the country that are publicly stirring this stew of science, education and faith.
*snip*
At the Board of Education's regular monthly meeting Feb. 14, the five voting board members are scheduled to decide whether to accept the new edition of the book and might discuss Herold's call for new anti-evolution materials in addition to the book.
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The consensus in mainstream science, represented in such organizations as the National Academy of Sciences, the American Institute of Biological Sciences, the Smithsonian Institution and the American Museum of Natural History, was, in effect, captured in 31 pages of text and illustrations published in November in National Geographic magazine. In big red letters, the magazine cover asks: "WAS DARWIN WRONG?" In bigger letters inside, the answer is: "NO. The evidence for Evolution is overwhelming."
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Joel Cracraft, immediate past president of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, compared the scientific agreement on evolutionary theory to "the Earth revolving around the sun."
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Then there's the matter of teaching the meaning and method of good science.
"The issue is science," Roberts said. "What is science, and, if there's a conflicting view, does it meet the rigor of science we're seeking?"
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
Doc, I've struck upon this very same view of the American revisionist theocrats. The anti-gun left's revisionist interpretation of the second amendment is related. Multiculturalism and post-modernism are very closely linked to the campaign against science. We're talking about nothing less than the destruction of logic and reason as the fundamental underpinning of America's (and the entire west's) success. They all have more in common than they'd like to admit.
Of course. But one can also use a basic understanding of anthropology. It is only since the Englightenment that humans have concerned themselves so deeply with the workings of the physical world. We ask ourselves different kinds of questions now than we did 5000 years ago. The ancient Jews were above all interested in clarifying what kind of divinity would create this world and human beings, as well as what their special relationship to that divinity was. We call that concern metaphysics now, and it has become a second-class citizen in a world dominated by scientific inquiry into the material world. Nonetheless, we must not make the mistake of projecting our mindset onto the ancient Jews or early Christians. Or even Western humans pre-Enlightenment.
Why do the ignorant try to teach? You really should have not slept through your HS biology class.
Lots of Christians can think out of the box. It's the stupid creationists we have a problem with.
You sound like you have bought into Process Theology, but if not, my apologies.
The God of 5000 years ago is still the God of today. He hasn't changed.
How do you sort out who the smart creationists are vs. the dumb ones?
Find the one collecting the money.
That said, I suggest you read this:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1333962/posts
Then, I ask you this: why during over 2 decades of my education, was the story of Emma Darwin totally suppressed?
contemporary
Without evolved cow butter or without created cow butter? :^)
More than ever, we are beset by the demands of modern technology to think these questions through.
And no, I am quite conservative in my theology. So conservative, in fact, that I accept the answers found in the Bible to the questions of who is God and what is my relationship to Him. I just don't think the Bible answers questions about how God actually made all of this happen.
They derive from multiple sources, but most notably from the imperative toward preservation and advancement of humanity (i.e., the species).
I guess that means the 'cause' of the first form of life is not a scientific question. That what 'caused' the big bang is not a scientific question....yes?
You could try to do better
I no longer have a parish. And I live in Indiana. Actually don't have much to do with the church anymore because it is too liberal. And you'll have to educate me on Emma Darwin, because I'm just an evolution/creation passerby.
Uh, come again? What the heck are you even trying to say with this?! Darwin's experiments, although extensive, were almost always focused on highly specific questions i.e. of morphological variation within and among species, variation in wild versus domestic animals (pigeons
Pigeons!!! You're going to use Darwin's work with pigeons to combat my argument?
Yes, Darwin was able to create pigeons with spectacular variations (huge fantails, bulging beaks- variations with feathers and tails). But despite all of these spectacular variations, the pigeons remained pigeons. They represent a cyclical change in gene frequencies but no new genetic information.
Another historic example is plant breeders trying to increase the sugar content of sugar beets. They did so from 6 to 17 percent over 75 years. But they could go no further (over the next 50yrs.). Why, because once all the genes for a particular trait have been selected, breeding can go no further. Breeding shuffles and selects among existing genes in the gene pool but breeding does not create new genes any more than shuffling creates more cards. A bird cannot grow fur and a mouse cannot grow wings.
In school, little Emma wasn't worthy of discussion when I was young. Little wonder why ...
Well, I discussed it in a reply to the same message, before I read this reply of yours. Except that the daughter was Annie. (Emma was Darwin's wife, who outlived him.) And this had not a thing to do with "the formation of the natural selection part of Darwin's theory" (or with any of Darwin's scientific views) since it occurred nearly 15 years after he hit upon the idea of natural selection.
What scholars have argued (correctly, IMHO) is that the death of Annie was an important factor in driving Darwin to a final abandonment of Christianity following a long period of gradually developing skepticism. IOW it may have been important in the development of Darwin's religious views, but had not a thing to do with his scientific views.
No. I'd have to detect an argument first.
{snip}
ToE folks, on the other hand, these folks are seriously creative. You can tell from the posts.
I have to say you are being obtuse about something many, many people have pointed out on this thread and others. In fact, I mentioned it in that response on the other thread I started off by linking. And that point is:
Many Christians also believe evolution is a valid theory!!
(And in my experience, pretty much all of those also believe various creationist explanations that compete with evolution, including Intelligent Design, are a load of hooey.)
Thus any attempts you make to artifically divide people into two groups of "Christians" on one hand and "those who believe in evolution" on the other is disingenuous at best. Whether it's easy for you to accept or not, many, many of your co-religionists see no conflict whatsoever between their Christian faith and evolution.
"that architecture is frozen music."
Good one!
"art is the science of elimination".
Got that from a golf book.
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